Yesterday, Japanese company Ispace was set to perform its first moon landing, but unfortunately, it did not go as planned. At first, the descent of Ispace’s lunar spacecraft, Hakuto-R, went as intended, but when the spacecraft was about 90 meters from the moon’s surface, contact with it was lost.
Ispace later stated in a comment that they assume Hakuto-R crashed on the moon’s surface, and that the mission failed. If Hakuto-R had completed a soft landing on the moon, Ispace would have become the first private company to achieve this. Previously, only the United States, China, and the Soviet Union have succeeded in soft landing spacecraft on the moon’s surface. Israeli companies SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace attempted to land the spacecraft Beresheet on the moon in 2019, but that also ended in a crash landing.
Ispace plans new attempts in 2024 and 2025
Ispace plans to send additional moon landers in 2024 and 2025, which hopefully will be more successful than what happened yesterday. In the video above, you can see a summary of Hakuto-R’s attempt to soft land on the moon, as well as some comments from Ispace after the failed landing.
